ALICE NOT JOHN Episode 4: A Fictional Radio Transmission Guest: Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson (Stilluppsteypa)
ALICE NOT JOHN
Episode 3: A Fictional Radio Transmission
Guest: Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson (Stilluppsteypa)
Host: Joeri Bruyninckx
A conversation I overheard in a record store:
Customer: “Do you have Coltrane?”
Record shop owner: “In the jazz section.”
Customer: “I mean Alice, not John.”
Record shop owner: “In the jazz section.”
ALICE NOT JOHN is the name of a fictional radio show. The idea is this: for every episode, I ask a musician the same 12 questions. The answers I receive are the “playlist” of my fictional radio show. The questions are these:
1) Which song always brings you back to your childhood?
Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson: Wow, so many… so many… but I’m gonna go for Cindy Lauper’s ‘Time After Time.’ It really hits deep. The first thing my girlfriend does in the morning before going to work is put on the radio, and it has happened that they play that track. Being just out of bed and all emotional, it can really tear me up. So good.
2) Which is your favorite shower sing-along song?
‘Memphis Tennessee’… which is a Johnny Rivers song, but like probably many, I first heard the Elvis version. Many covered it, and my favorite version of the song is the one by Hasil Adkins.
3) What was your favorite song as a teenager?
Too many… so many… also, when you are a teenager, things change so, so, so fast. Getting in all this new information all the time, and sucking in all that stuff and different styles of music, etc.… so I would have to name one track from every style of music I was getting into back then. But I guess I’ll go for a super cliché, obvious one—but one that makes me feel weird when I hear it today, which means it did its job well and correct: ‘Only Shallow’ by My Bloody Valentine.
4) What is your favorite air-guitar song?
Link Wray’s ‘Rumble.’
5) Which song do you associate with your 20s?
Kraftwerk’s ‘Trans Europe Express.’
6) From which song do you know the lyrics by heart?
I think none totally by heart, ha ha… only maybe the chorus. But it’s nice when you catch one word or sentence here and there in a song, and so the lyrics become like a poem in your head. But still, I do like to sit down to study album covers and read the lyrics while listening to records.
7) Which song gives you consolation when you feel sad?
Also here, I could mention many… I remember ‘Hyperborea’ by Tangerine Dream being on repeat when I was once going “through it.”
8) Tell me about a song you think people wouldn’t expect you to like.
Tough question, as I’m guessing friends of mine will know I like all kinds of music. But I’m gonna go for Lady Gaga ‘Stupid Love.’
9) Which song do you recommend to people if you think they don’t know it?
Ok, I have two songs in mind… or actually three… First would be: Lee Marvin ‘Wand’rin’ Star,’ second would be: ‘Mina Se Telefonando’ (which is a Morricone composition and possibly the most beautiful song ever recorded), and third would be: Guido and Maurizio De Angelis ‘Keoma.’
10) ‘Wonderful Tonight’ by Eric Clapton is a break-up song (about a couple who decide not to tell their friends they just broke up because they don’t want to spoil a party they’re planning to go to). Strangely enough, this song often gets played as the opening song at weddings. Tell me about a song you misunderstood when you first heard it.
Suzanne Vega’s song ‘Luka’… let’s just say at first I had no idea it was so dark.
11) Which song always makes you do silly dance moves?
Has to be a Boredoms song. Also, so many… they have that effect on me. I like to go wild.
12) Which song do you quote most often? Which line?
Beethoven’s ‘9th Symphony Freude, schöner Götterfunken.’ An die Freude’ by Schiller.
